An Army at Dawn The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy

by Atkinson, Rick

• ISBN13: 9780805062885
• ISBN10: 0805062882
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-10-02
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Summary

In the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in WW II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North AfricaThe liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great power.Beginning with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army at Dawn follows the American and British armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced and sometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fighting force. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but fallible commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel.Brilliantly researched, rich with new material and vivid insights, Atkinson's narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.

Author Biography

Rick Atkinson is a former staff writer and assistant managing editor at The Washington Post, and the bestselling author of The Long Gray Line (0-8050-6291-2) and Crusade. His many awards include the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	p. xvi
Map Legend	p. xvii
Allied Chain of Command	p. xix
Prologue	p. 1
Passage	p. 21
A Meeting with the Dutchman	p. 21
Gathering the Ships	p. 33
Rendezvous at Cherchel	p. 42
On the Knees of the Gods	p. 49
A Man Must Believe in His Luck	p. 57
Landing	p. 69
"In the Night, All Cats Are Grey"	p. 69
In Barbary	p. 78
Villain	p. 87
To the Last Man	p. 91
"Glory Enough for Us All"	p. 103
Beachhead	p. 116
A Sword in Algiers	p. 116
A Blue Flag over Oran	p. 124
"An Orgy of Disorder"	p. 130
Battle for the Kasbah	p. 141
"It's All Over for Now"	p. 148
Pushing East	p. 163
"We Live in Tragic Hours"	p. 163
A Cold Country with a Hot Sun	p. 167
Medjez-el-Bab	p. 178
Fat Geese on a Pond	p. 187
Primus in Carthago	p. 194
"Go for the Swine with a Blithe Heart"	p. 194
"The Dead Salute the Gods"	p. 201
"Jerry Is Counterattacking!"	p. 217
A Country of Defiles	p. 237
Longstop	p. 237
"They Shot the Little Son of a Bitch"	p. 250
"This Is the Hand of God"	p. 256
Casablanca	p. 265
The Ice-Cream Front	p. 265
Speedy Valley	p. 270
"The Touch of the World"	p. 280
The Sinners' Concourse	p. 295
A Bits and Pieces War	p. 301
"Goats Set Out to Lure a Tiger"	p. 301
"This Can't Happen to Us"	p. 312
"The Mortal Dangers That Beset Us"	p. 317
"A Good Night for a Mass Murder"	p. 327
Kasserine	p. 339
A Hostile Debouchment	p. 339
None Returned	p. 348
"Sometimes That Is Not Good Enough"	p. 353
"This Place Is Too Hot"	p. 366
"Order, Counter-order, and Disorder"	p. 373
"Lay Roughly on the Tanks"	p. 382
The World We Knew Is a Long Time Dead	p. 395
Vigil in Red Oak	p. 395
"We Know There'll Be Troubles of Every Sort"	p. 398
"One Needs Luck in War"	p. 406
"The Devil Is Come Down"	p. 416
Over the Top	p. 431
"Give Them Some Steel!"	p. 431
"Search Your Soul"	p. 444
Night Closes Down	p. 453
"I Had a Plan ... Now I Have None"	p. 464
The Inner Keep	p. 480
Hell's Corner	p. 480
Hammering Home the Cork	p. 490
"Count Your Children Now, Adolf!"	p. 499
Tunisgrad	p. 513
Epilogue	p. 530
Notes	p. 543
Sources	p. 626
Acknowledgments	p. 655
Index	p. 660
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

From An Army at Dawn:

Twenty-seven acres of headstones fill the American military cemetery at Carthage, Tunisia. There are no obelisks, no tombs, no ostentatious monuments, just 2,841 bone-white marble markers, two feet high and arrayed in ranks as straight as gunshots. Only the chiseled names and dates of death suggest singularity. Four sets of brothers lie side by side. Some 240 stones are inscribed with thirteen of the saddest words in our language: "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God."

The stones are devoid of epitaphs, parting endearments, even dates of birth. But visitors familiar with the American and British invasion of North Africa in November 1942, and the subsequent seven-month struggle to expel the Axis powers there, can make reasonable conjectures. We can surmise that Willett H. Wallace, a private first-class in the 26th Infantry Regiment who died on November 9, 1942, was killed at St. Cloud, Algeria, during the three days of hard fighting against the French. And Jacob Feinstein, a sergeant from Maryland in the 135th Infantry who died on April 29, 1943, no doubt passed during the epic battle for Hill 609, where the American Army came of age.

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Excerpted from An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.